Ghost Stories and Legends of Southwestern Connecticut


Book Description

An unlucky gambler who haunts the Curtis House, the ethereal White Lady who wanders among the tombs of Union Cemetery and a ghostly diner who still insists upon joining the meal are among the otherworldly residents of Southwestern Connecticut. With a long and sometimes turbulent history, the region has become a host to lingering spirits who cannot leave behind the sites of their demise. Through spirit photography and firsthand accounts, Donna Kent, founder of the Cosmic Society of Paranormal Investigation, explores the most haunted locations from Stratford to Easton. These hair-raising tales are sure to intrigue seasoned enthusiasts and convert even the most skeptical reader into a believer.




Connecticut Ghost Stories and Legends


Book Description

The collaborators of A Guide to Haunted New England track the spirits of the “Constitution State” through its storied history. The emerald sheen illuminating the Sabbatarian burying ground, 8 Mile River’s misty figures which emerge at the Devil’s Hopyard, and flying demon skeletons on Charles Island—these bizarre haunts are uniquely Connecticut. In the ghostly lore of the state, the ambient ramblings of the Leatherman still ring out in the caves of Harwinton’s forests and the former residents of the Hale Homestead continue to roam the attic at night. Join authors and Paranormal United Research Founders, Thomas D’Agostino and his wife Arlene Nicholson, as they recount bone chilling mysteries from Putnam, Canton, New London and many more shadowy corners of the Nutmeg state. Includes photos! Praise for A Guide to Haunted New England “Fun, charming . . . includes not only locales with reported ghosts, but also sites with macabre (though not haunted) histories.”—True Crime Librarian “Anyone interested in exploring the haunted, macabre and abandoned throughout New England knows they can count on D’Agostino to find out more about the site’s history, past sightings and how to find them.”—Mobile RVing




Haunted America


Book Description

Contains over seventy tales of ghostly hauntings from each of the fifty United States and Canada.




Ghost Stories and Legends of Eastern Connecticut


Book Description

Who or what lurks below the decks of the ships at Mystic Seaport? Does playwright Eugene O'Neill still live in his family's cottage on the New London shore? Are there really vampires in Connecticut? Can Israel Putnam's ghost still see the whites of your eyes? This captivating book presents tales and legends from Eastern Connecticut's most haunted locations dark deeds and lore from New London and Mystic, and stretching all the way to Brooklyn, Windham and Franklin. Like eerie and desperate whispers on the wind, the ghosts of Connecticut's past reveal their deepest, darkest secrets to author and paranormal investigator Donna Kent as she sheds new light on this collection of spine-tingling legends.




The Old Leather Man


Book Description

In 1883, wearing a sixty-pound suit sewn from leather boot-tops, a wanderer known only as the Leather Man began to walk a 365 mile loop between the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers that he would complete every 34 days, for almost six years. His circuit took him through at least 41 towns in southwestern Connecticut and southeastern New York, sleeping in caves, accepting food from townspeople, and speaking only in grunts and gestures along the way. What remains of the mysterious Leather Man today are the news clippings and photographs taken by the first-hand witnesses of this captivating individual. The Old Leather Man gathers the best of the early newspaper accounts of the Leather Man, and includes maps of his route, historic photographs of his shelters, the houses he was known to stop at along his way, and of the Leather Man himself. This history tracks the footsteps of the Leather Man and unravels the myths surrounding the man who made Connecticut’s caves his home. Ebook Edition Note: Six of the 111 illustrations have been redacted.




Haunting Experiences


Book Description

Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.




Maine Ghosts and Legends


Book Description

Maine has a rich supernatural history and ghost stories from the state are as varied as they are prolific. Freelance writer and reporter Tom Verde first became interested in such eerie occurrences while researching first-hand encounters with ghosts for a series of public radio programs. This book recounts some of the spine-tingling tales he uncovered in his research, including: •The dagger-wielding shade who terrorized a Portland couple •The murdered Indian who revisited Means’s Tavern •Famed diva Lillian Nordica, whose voice still echoes through the Farmington auditorium named in her honor •The hostile spirit who tried to frighten the tenants out of an Orrington house •Even an entire phantom ship, bound eternally for Freeport These are not fictitious creations of literary imagination. People from all walks of life—including many who were positive they would never believe in ghosts—attest to these encounters.




The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales


Book Description

" West Virginia boasts an unusually rich heritage of ghost tales. Originally West Virginians told these hundred stories not for idle amusement but to report supernatural experiences that defied ordinary human explanation. From jealous rivals and ghostly children to murdered kinsmen and omens of death, these tales reflect the inner lives—the hopes, beliefs, and fears—of a people. Like all folklore, these tales reveal much of the history of the region: its isolation and violence, the passions and bloodshed of the Civil War era, the hardships of miners and railroad laborers, and the lingering vitality of Old World traditions.




The World's Most Haunted House


Book Description

In this unprecedented work, the story of the 1974 Bridgeport, Connecticut poltergeist is at last revealed. A crowd of more than 2,000 onlookers gathered. National media reported jumping furniture, floating refrigerators, and attacking entities. Decades after the publicity quieted, more than 40 hours of never-before-released interviews with police officers, firefighters, and others tell the story as it actually unfolded: Relive the experience, the terror, the rampant emotions, and the unexplainable events that took place in that house as they happened. Have access to revealing excerpts from actual interviews, police reports, and rare documents. Access unreleased audio, poltergeist sounds, and an old radio broadcast. Return to 1974 and feel the Lindley Street experience from the inside. Find out why it is deemed the haunting that should have brought the paranormal into mainstream science.




Civil War Ghost Stories & Legends


Book Description

The “First Lady of American Folklore” explores the supernatural side of the Civil War with chilling tales of spectral soldiers and haunted battlefields. Few events have sparked more legends and stories of the supernatural than America’s Civil War. The accounts of gallantry and heroism have spread far and wide. Nancy Roberts grew up listening to her father’s stories of the War Between the States and she trekked over many battle sites with him during her childhood. After reading about General Joshua Chamberlain’s supernatural experience at the Battle of Gettysburg, Roberts began to collect tales of the blue and gray and write them down. In her latest collection, readers visit such famous Civil War sites as Fredericksburg, Antietam, Johnson’s Island, Andersonville, Fort Davis, Gaines Mill, Gettysburg, Fort Monroe, Harpers Ferry, Vicksburg, Richmond, Charleston, New Bern, and Petersburg. Through these stories, the readers will hear the voices of those brave individuals who lived through that dramatic era; visit with Brigadier General J. E. B. Stuart on the banks of the Chickahominy River, learn the real story about John Brown’s activities at Harpers Ferry, and watch the passing of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train. Praise for Nancy Roberts “Just about everybody likes a good ghost story. And ghost hunter/author Nancy Roberts has put together as shivery a selection of other worldly tales as you’re likely to find anywhere . . . And whether you believe in ghosts or not, these tales are guaranteed to give you a chill, especially before you go into a dark room alone.” —Southern Living